Maybe if Bishop weren’t standing right there, I could bring myself to care more and make an attempt to convince him it’s nothing, but it’s impossible when I’m looking at the woman.
I wander over to the edge and stare down at her, then squat to put myself more to her level. “If you think I need to work on my stamina so bad, why don’t you come in here and show me what you’ve got?”
Her brow rises slowly. “You want to spar with me?”
Atlas chuckles behind me. “Boy, you don’t know what you’re asking for.”
It’s meant as a warning.
To anyone else, it might have been one.
For me, it just sounds like a challenge.
I grin, never looking away from her. “Oh, I definitely do.”
BISHOP
I must be fucking nuts.
It’s the only reason I would be standing in the ring in my gear, facing down the most dangerous man I know—excluding Satriano.
And it isn’t Atlas.
It’s the one who got me to do things I never thought I would, to give up the one thing I so desperately need in my life all the time. It’s the man I haven’t been able to look in the eyes since then because he saw too much.
He knows too much.
From the first moment we met, I could sense it—his ability to read people. And he had me figured out from day one.
Now, he bounces on his feet, slamming his gloves together and cracking his neck side to side as if he’s preparing for a title fight and not just a little friendly sparring.
Because we both know that’s not what this is.
Not by a longshot.
He has a lot to say that I don’t want to hear. I’ve heard it enough in my own head over the last several days since I left his place.
It’s been so insistent that I’ve almost welcomed the distraction Satriano coming back provided. The excuse to avoid this man and the way he pushes me.
Atlas watches from outside the ring, a grin on his face before either of us have even thrown a punch. Whatever he suspects—and he clearly suspects something—he also knows there’s more to this showdown than we’re letting on.
Gage wants to prove a point.
I just want to punch him in the face to wipe away that smug smirk he always wears.
And I’m not waiting around for him to make the first move.
I step forward and swing a hard right hook. His eyes widen, but he somehow manages to duck out of the way so the blow only glances off his shoulder rather than hitting him square in the jaw.
It was close.
So damn close.
I almost had him.
And that fucker grins.
He grins at me as he lays down a barrage of punches that send me retreating into the ropes. They catch my retreat, but I push off them, shoving my hands against his chest, forcing him back with as much strength as I can muster. But he barely budges.
